LIFE LESSONS
GIDEON
DR. JIM DIXON
APRIL 6, 2003
JUDGES 6:11-16
Deborah was a prophetess, judge, and liberator of Israel; but 3,100 years ago, Deborah died. When she died, things were not the same. When Deborah died, there was no leader in Israel. The children of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They began to sin against God, and they began to worship Amorite deities. The Bible tells us that the judgement of God came upon the Jewish people, and God gave them over into the hand of Midian. The Midianites came en masse, their number too great to count. They drove the Jewish people—men, women, and children—into dens and caves of the earth.
The Midianites destroyed or seized Israel’s produce and crops. They destroyed or seized Israel’s cattle and animals. They oppressed the children of Israel for seven years. After seven years, the people of Israel began to repent. God got their attention. They began to repent, and they began to cry out. They sought forgiveness and help from God. So, God raised up another deliverer. God raised up another liberator, and his name was Gideon.
Gideon was not the first deliverer in the book of Judges. There was Othniel, then Ehud, then Shamgar, then Deborah and Barak, and, finally, Gideon. God raised Gideon up. In some ways, his story is more amazing than anyone else’s story. From the life of Gideon, we have two life lessons this morning. The first life lesson is this: trust the presence of God. That’s what God wants you to do from this point on in your life. God wants you to trust His presence.
The Bible tells us that the Angel of the Lord, the Angel of God’s Presence, came to Gideon near the oak of Ophrah. The angel said to Gideon, “The Lord is with you.” Furthermore, he said, “The Lord will be with you.” It was a message of divine presence. But Gideon found that message hard to trust. It was hard to trust God’s presence, hard to believe that God was really with him.
We should understand that for the Jews in the Old Testament era, it was a difficult thing to trust the presence of God. The Jews viewed the divine presence as intermittent and fleeting, sometimes capricious and almost arbitrary. They didn’t really trust the presence of God. It was true that God, on occasion, manifested Himself through a vision or a dream, but only to a few. It was also true that, on occasion, God manifested Himself visually and physically through a theophany—a physical manifestation of the Divine presence.
The Bible tells us in Exodus chapter 13 that God manifested Himself to the people of Israel through the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud, the Divine presence. But the presence of God in the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud did not last long. It only lasted during the wilderness wandering. Of course, the Bible tells us that God manifested Himself in the theophany to Moses. In Exodus chapter 3, “God appeared to Moses in the burning bush.” The bush burned brightly but briefly . . . and soon, God was gone. His presence was intermittent. His presence was fleeting. The Angel of the Lord, the Angel of God’s Presence, appeared to individuals in Israel from time to time; but his appearances were brief, and he was soon gone.
The Jews also believed that God was present in some special sense with the Ark of the Covenant. They believed the “Shekhinah,” the glory of God’s presence, hovered upon the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant. But the Ark of the Covenant could be taken away from the Israelites, as it was when the Philistines stole it. The Jewish people shouted, “Ichabod! The Glory has departed. The presence of God has departed.” They tried to protect the presence of God. They tried to secure it. They put the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle and, later, in the Temple. No one could go into the Holy of Holies except for the High Priest, and he but once a year on Yom Kippur. So, the people were separated from the divine presence of God. There was little confidence that God was with them specially or personally.
Ultimately, when the Temple was destroyed, the Ark of the Covenant was taken and never found again. The children of Israel were sent into exile. It was in exile that Ezekiel the prophet wrote that he’d had a vision. Ezekiel the prophet had been in exile for 25 years in the land of Babylon. By the waters of Babylon (modern-day Iraq), he had a vision of a millennial Jerusalem—a Jerusalem that would one day come to earth, a Jerusalem that would have divine splendor. In this vision, Ezekiel was told that the city of Jerusalem would be called “Jehovah Shammah,” “Yahweh Shammah,” “the Lord is Present,” and “the Lord is Here.” This was the dream of the Jews. This was their longing: that one day God would be present with them. But it was difficult in the Old Testament era for any individual Jewish woman or man to believe that God was with them in a special way.
So, here’s Gideon. God comes to him through the mysterious being called “the Angel of the Lord.” Bible scholars and theologians debate the nature of the Angel of the Lord. There are some Bible scholars who believe the Angel of the Lord was a special angel. This angel is so high, so exalted, so lifted up that he could actually speak to God. This angel is so close to God that he could be called the “Angel of the Divine Presence.” He could be referred to as “Lord.”
There are other Bible scholars who believe the Angel of the Lord was not an angel at all because the Hebrew word for angel, “malakim,” oftentimes does not mean “angel.” It can mean, “one who bears a message” or “one who guards” or “one who protects.” So, the idea would be, according to some Bible scholars, that the Angel of the Lord was not an angel, but simply a physical manifestation of God. The Angel of the Lord was a theophany—where God appears in order to deliver a message to His people or in order to guard or protect His people.
There are many other Bible scholars who believe the Angel of the Lord is a Christophany, a physical, pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person of the Trinity—that is, a manifestation of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. But whatever the nature of the Angel of the Lord, there’s no doubt of this: the Angel of the Lord spoke for God and brought the presence of God.
The message to Gideon was clear. “The Lord is with you, and the Lord will be with you.” Gideon just couldn’t quite believe this. He did not know what to make of this being called the Angel of the Lord. He decided to bring an offering. In Judges chapter 6, Gideon brought an offering of meat and broth and flour—a lot of flour, 40 pounds of flour. He brought this as an offering and set it upon rock. The Angel of the Lord brought down supernatural fire and the offering was consumed instantly. The eyes of Gideon were opened. Gideon realized he was, indeed, in the presence of the Lord. He realized that the Lord was, indeed, with him and the promise must be true that the Lord would always be with him. This changed Gideon’s life. Everything that took place thereafter was only possible because Gideon began to believe that the Lord was with Him. Gideon began to believe that God was present with him, the Divine presence.
As Christians, we acknowledge the omnipresence of God. There is a sense in which God is in all places at all times, omnipresent. But, as Christians, we also recognize that He can manifest Himself in terms of a special presence. We know from the Bible that God is present with Christians in a very special way because the Bible tells us that when we come to Christ, something very unique happens. When you came to Christ, you who believe and invited Jesus Christ to be your Savior from sin, you who embraced Him as the Lord of your life . . . When you came and confessed your sin and asked Him to wash you white as snow . . . When you stood at the foot of the cross and invited Him to do that . . . When you invited Him to be the Lord of your life, and you promised that you would seek to follow Him from this day forth . . . In that moment, the Bible says, you were born anew. The Greek is “anagennao” or “gennao anothen,” “to be born from above” or “to be born again.” You were regenerated, and you were brought into the family of God. You became sons and daughters of God. Furthermore, the Bible tells us, in that moment when you embraced Christ as your Lord and Savior . . . In that moment, God began to be with you in a very special way. God sent His Spirit to indwell you.
When I asked Jesus into my heart at the age of five, as I knelt in our living room at the side of my mom . . . In that moment, the Holy Spirit came in. He has been with me, and He has been in me all of these years. For all of you who believe He is with you and in you, He wants you to trust the presence, the divine presence of God. He wants you to know that no matter what you’re going through, no matter what you’re experiencing, no matter what is ahead of you, He’s with you. He wants you to believe that, to trust His presence.
You’ve all heard of David Livingstone. David Livingstone was, of course, the famous African explorer and missionary. The year was 1856 when Livingstone returned to Scotland and to the University of Glasgow, where he had received his Doctor of Medicine. He had been in Africa for 16 years, and he wanted to recruit more people to come and join him. He wanted more people to come and help him, to come and serve God, to come and serve the people in Africa.
He stood before an audience at the University of Glasgow, and he was weak. In his 16 years in Africa, he had suffered from dysentery 27 different times. One of his arms was paralyzed because of a lion attack. He was exhausted and spent. Yet, he trusted the presence of God. He felt the presence of God. He spoke with God’s anointing as he spoke to the people. When he was finished, there was a question-and-answer time. Somebody said to him, “Dr. Livingstone, how do you find the strength to continue? How do you find the strength to explore [what they, at that time, called] ‘the dark continent?’ How do you find the strength to explore Africa? How do you find the strength to be a doctor and to seek to help all of those people with their medical problems, when you yourself have medical problems? How do you find the strength? How do you find the strength to fight the slave trade [which David Livingstone did all over Africa]? How did he find the strength? How did he find the strength to proclaim the love of Jesus Christ to people who had never heard of Him and to audiences who were occasionally hostile? How did he find the strength to be a missionary?”
Livingstone said, “My whole life is really built on my trust in one verse. It’s Matthew 28:20, where Jesus said, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.’” He said, “That’s what keeps me going. That’s what gives me strength. That is the basis of my life day-by-day—that Jesus Christ is present with me, that He will never fail me and never forsake me. He’s with me always. I trust that. I believe that.”
Two years later, Livingstone went back to Africa. The year was 1858. He remained there for another 15 years until he died in 1873. He died in prayer, kneeling by his cot in a mud hut. When they found him, they opened his diary. The final entrance in his diary included these words: “My Jesus, my life, my Lord, my all. I rededicate my whole self to Thee.” He left his body behind and went into the presence of God in heaven. He is still with the Lord. The Lord has always been with him. He trusted the presence of God, and what God did in his life was amazing. What God did through David Livingstone in terms of exploration, in terms of medicine, in terms of the Gospel . . . it was amazing. And it was because he trusted the presence of God.
There’s no telling what God might do in your life if you would trust His presence every morning when you get up, with every breath you take—every day, every week, every month, every year. If you would trust His presence, if you would truly believe He’s with you and He’ll always be with you, there’s no telling what God might do in your life. I know it’s hard because we go through hard times.
I was reading some time ago about Nancy Bidwell. She had lost her husband, and she was devastated. She loved him so much. She’d also lost a child. She felt so alone. She was a Christian, but she had ceased to feel the presence of God. It was the middle of the winter, and she went down to Laguna Beach in Southern California at Emerald Bay. She was the only one there. It was a very cold day. She was all alone, and she was crying. She went and sat down in the sand, and she just continued to cry. She felt so alone. She wrote in the sand, “Jesus, help me,” kind of a desperate plea. She just wrote it with her finger, “Jesus, help me.”
She didn’t know how much longer she remained there. She was deep in thought and pain. Suddenly, she saw a shadow over where she had written in the sand. She looked up and there were three little boys. They had been walking down the beach, and they stopped in front of her. One of the little boys looked at what she had written in the sand. Above the name of Jesus, he put a cross with a little stick he was using as a walking stick. He drew a cross, he looked at Nancy Bidwell, and he said, “I’m a Christian too.” He looked at the tears in her eyes, he smiled, and he said, “Jesus loves you, you know.” He was soon gone. He went with his friends on down the beach.
Nancy Bidwell said that somehow her life was changed. It would never be the same. She suddenly, once again, began to feel the presence of God. A little boy had just stopped and responded to her in accordance with what little maturity he had . . . And, somehow, she sensed the presence of God. She began to live with a sense of God’s presence and with a trust in God’s presence. God began to do wonderful things in her life again. I just know that God wants you to trust His presence, whatever you’re going through.
We’re told in the book of Judges that Gideon, after he had tested the Angel of the Lord and begun to trust the presence of God, went and built an altar right there near the oak of Ophrah. He built an altar, and he called it “Jehovah Shalom” or “Yahweh Shalom,” “the Lord is Peace.” I think it is true that you really only feel the peace of the Lord when you trust the presence of the Lord.
Peace is kind of an elusive thing in our world. We live in a world where a lot of people think that peace is the absence of trouble in life; but peace is not the absence of trouble in life. Peace is simply the presence of God. If you trust the presence of God, you can have peace in any circumstance. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, you’ll have peace if you trust the presence of God and believe His words . . . if you believe that He is with you and that He will always be with you.
There’s a second life lesson from Gideon. The first is that we are to trust the presence of God. The second is that we are to trust the power of God. This is what God is saying to His people today. He wants us to trust His power. The story of Gideon is an amazing story. I think it’s safe to say that Gideon not only struggled to trust the presence of God, he also struggled to trust the power of God. God called Gideon to lead the children of Israel in war. He called Gideon to lead the men of Israel in a battle against the Midianites, who had oppressed Israel for seven years and driven the Jews into dens and caves of the earth. God raised up Gideon and anointed him to lead Israel in war, to be a liberator, a deliverer.
It was hard for Gideon to trust the power of God, particularly when facing such a formidable enemy. The Midianites were vast in number. Their army consisted of more than 120,000 men. All the men that Gideon could raise were 32,000. He was outnumbered four to one. It was hard for him to trust the power of God. So, he conducted a little test. He said, “God, if Your presence and Your power are really with me, then give me a sign. I’m going to put this fleece on the threshing floor, and when I wake in the morning, if Your power and Your presence are really with me, let the fleece be soaking wet. Let it be wet with dew, and let the ground that surrounds it be completely dry.”
Gideon woke up the next morning, and, sure enough, the fleece was soaking wet with dew, but the ground around it was completely dry. Gideon thought, “Well, maybe this is God, but a fleece can retain moisture longer than the stone floor that surrounds it. So, maybe it’s just a natural event.” He said, “Lord, one more time. If You’re really present with me, if Your power is really here, then when I wake up tomorrow morning, let the fleece be completely dry and let the stone floor be soaking wet.”
The next morning, Gideon woke up, and it was done. The fleece was completely dry, and the stone floor was soaking wet. Gideon began to trust the power of God. He agreed to lead the 32,000 men of Israel against the 120,000 of Midian, even though he was outnumbered four to one.
But then God said to Gideon, “Gideon, you’ve got too many men. If you go with 32,000 men, they’ll think they did it. They’ll think they won it. They’ll think it was their power. You need to have fewer men.”
I’m sure Gideon was shocked. God said to him, “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to ask your 32,000 men . . . ask them ‘How many of you are afraid? How many of you are afraid to go to war? How many of you have fear about this battle?’” I’m sure Gideon suspected what was going to happen. God said, “I want you to dismiss all those who are afraid.” Gideon asked the 32,000 men, and 22,000 admitted that they were afraid. Twenty-two thousand were sent away. Gideon was left with 10,000. You’ve got to wonder a little bit about those 10,000 . . . How rational were they? How come they weren’t afraid when facing 120,000 Midianites?
So, Gideon is left with 10,000. He’s outnumbered 12 to one, and God comes to him and says, “There’s really one problem. You’ve still got too many men. If you only have 10,000, they’re still going to think they did it. They’re still going to think it was their power. So, I want you to reduce the number. Here’ what I want you to do: I want you to take the 10,000 down to the water so that they can drink. All those who get down on their hands and knees to drink directly from the water, I want you to dismiss. Only those who reach down with their hand and take the water up and lick it out of their hand . . . those are the ones I want you to keep.”
Nine thousand seven hundred men got down on their hands and knees and drank directly from the water. Only 300 scooped the water up with their hand and lapped it out of their hand. So, Gideon was left with 300 men, outnumbered now 400 to one. Just 300 men facing the vast army of Midian. God said, “Perfect. This is exactly what I want. Everyone will know it’s My power. No one can take credit from Me.”
God sent Gideon to war, and it was a miracle. By the power of God, the people of Israel defeated the Midianites. God had those 300 Israelites stand on the surrounding mountains holding lamps and blowing trumpets. God confused the Midianites, and, in their confusion, they began to fight each other. Then they scattered in terror and fear. It was a great victory for Israel. They were liberated. They were delivered by the power of God.
I don’t know what you’re facing. It might be something that you just feel is overwhelming. It could be medical. It could be financial. It might be relational. It could be deeply spiritual. I don’t know what you’re facing; but God wants you to begin to trust today His presence and His power. God doesn’t want you to take the credit for the good things that are going to happen. He doesn’t want you to take the credit for the good things that have happened. He wants you to give Him the credit for the good in your life. I can look back on my life, and I know with all my heart that anything good that has happened to me has been God. It’s all been God.
I sometimes feel sorry for people who are single, not because they are single. I think the status of being single can be divinely ordained, and certainly people find their completion in God. But I feel for what single people have to go through, particularly when they enter the dating world. I remember how hard it was for me so long ago, back when I dated. At any age, the whole dating deal is kind of a hard deal. I think about a lot of singles who are older and maybe have recently become single and then seek to re-enter that dating world . . . what a hard deal that is.
I remember when I was in my early teens. My older brothers—I am the youngest of three sons—would sometimes say to me, “You’ll never get married.” Of course, my brothers are great guys that have always treated me well; but when I was real young . . . as with a lot of siblings . . . sometimes the youngest kind of gets teased and made fun of. They would say to me, “You’ll never get married.” They didn’t mean that I was so spiritual and that I was set apart for God. They didn’t mean that I was called to celibacy or that I was going to have this monastic deal going. What they meant was this: “You’re such a loser.”
I have to admit, as I look back on the whole dating deal, that’s exactly how I felt. I felt like such a loser, even in college. I remember dating a gal whose name was Kathy. I don’t know how it was for you in dating, but I know that I was looking for somebody who was beautiful, somebody who I was attracted to. I was looking for somebody who had a great sense of humor and was really witty, somebody who was very intelligent, somebody who was also a committed Christian. Beyond that, I didn’t want much . . . I think a lot of people are kind of like that in dating.
I thought Kathy kind of had all these things going, and I remember taking her to this wonderful upscale restaurant on Stern’s Wharf in Santa Barbara. There was valet service and everything. We were all dressed up. We went in. I remember I was kind of nervous. But it was a good meal. When the whole thing was done, they gave me the bill, which was really high. I reached in to get my wallet, and I somehow had lost it. (I did that a lot back in those days, lost my wallet.) Anyway, I couldn’t find my wallet, and I didn’t have any money. It was just so embarrassing. I knew you couldn’t really wash dishes to pay for your meal. I didn’t know what to do. I just said, “Hey, I’m so sorry. I don’t have any money. I don’t know where my wallet is.” It was just embarrassing, and Kathy wound up having to pay. I could tell she didn’t feel good about it.
Afterwards, we left the restaurant and the valet went to get my car. He brought the car to me and opened the door for her, and then he came around and opened the door for me. I realized, “I don’t have any money to tip him.” I’m thinking, “Man, I’m just going to kind of slip in and close the door real quickly and say goodbye.” I tried to do that, and then I noticed that she’d left the car and gone around to the back. I see her over there slipping him a little bit of money and tipping him. I felt like such a loser, and I really think she agreed. It was kind of the end of the deal. She wound up dating and marrying a friend of mine whose name is Lee. He became a college professor. The last I heard, they were happily living up in Ft. Collins.
I can remember a young woman named Gloria that I dated in college. It wasn’t easy to date her because she was engaged to another guy. At first, she wouldn’t even go out with me. She wouldn’t go out with me, but then my friends kind of got together and they talked to her. They told her all kinds of lies about me, all kinds of compliments. They made it sound like I was just awesome; and so, she finally agreed to have a date with me. We began to date, and, eventually, she broke off her engagement to this other guy whose name is Ron.
As it turned out, Ron was on the track and field team with another university. I was on the track and field team of our college, so we competed against each other. We encountered each other at a track meet and got into an argument. I wound up taking a swing at him and hitting him. Gloria just didn’t think that was very mature. She broke it all off with me, and again, I felt like such a loser. Ron and Gloria then got re-engaged and married. The last I heard, they live very happily in San Marino, California. I had the gift of driving women to their right mate.
I remember dating a gal named Kris. I really thought Kris was just beautiful and everything. She was a wonderful Christian. I would come back to my room in college and I would talk to my roommate Dennis about how great Kris was. Dennis didn’t really say anything, but apparently it was all kind of soaking in. So, Dennis began to date her, kind of in a stealth fashion. He didn’t tell me; he just began to take her out. Pretty soon, they were kind of an “item.” Dennis had a 356C Roadster Porsche. Kris really liked his Porsche.
Eventually, another friend of mine whose name was Bill, began to date Kris. He had a 911 Porsche, and she liked that even more. Bill was taking Kris into the mountains above Santa Barbara on a drive. He was kind of showing off, and they went around a sharp curve. He rolled his Porsche. It rolled over three times. On the second roll, his door flew open. There were no seat belts. She just flew right out of the car. The Porsche ultimately came to a stop right on the edge of a cliff. Miraculously, Bill was not hurt; but all he could think of was, “I’ve killed her. I’ve killed her.” He crawled out of the car, looked back across the road, and she was running towards him without a scratch on her. They kind of considered that a “God thing,” which I’m sure it was. So, Bill and Kris were married. They’re happily living in California. Bill’s a pastor and a good friend.
There is one other I would mention. I don’t mean to completely bore you. There was a gal named Pep. Her real name was Margaret, but she went by Pep. I actually had gone steady with her for two years in my last two years of high school. Then between high school and college, she’d gone down to Guatemala for three months. We’d been separated for three months. She said she enjoyed the separation so much that she decided to make it permanent when she came back. I still kind of carried a torch for her as time went by. By then, I was a senior in college, and we we’re still talking every once in a while. She tells me that she’s going to be a counselor up at this conference center in the Bay Area called Mt. Hermon Christian Conference Center.
I had a friend named Brad who was going to go up there. I told Brad about Pep. He didn’t seem very interested; but after the summer, I go into a place called the Hilly House where Dr. Hilligus lived (he was the Dean of the college). I went in there late one night. A lot of students stayed there. I went into the kitchen. The lights were off. I turned on the light and there was Brad and Pep kissing passionately on the kitchen floor. I remember feeling so embarrassed. I don’t know how they felt, but I felt really embarrassed. Of course, they were eventually married. They are happily married, and they’re wonderful Christians and doing real well.
I was in my senior year, and I really felt like such a loser. Most of my friends were, by that time, married. I remember one night in the wintertime. I just, in a sense, felt like giving up. I remember going down to the beach in Santa Barbara. There was nobody there because it was very cold. I was walking along the beach and I began to cry. I remember just praying and telling the Lord that I was just going to give everything up to Him. It was a turning point in my life. I remember saying, “Lord, I’ll go where you want me to go, and I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” I remember saying to Him, “Lord, I’ll be single the rest of my life if that’s what You want for me. I can live without a girl. I cannot live without You.” It was a turning point in my life. The amazing thing is the power of God, the power of God to provide. It was out of that experience that God called me into the ministry.
I went to seminary, to theology school. The guys kind of outnumbered the gals. At least back at that time, guys kind of outnumbered the gals in seminary, kind of like the Midianites outnumbered Gideon. It was so awesome . . . I don’t have time to tell you . . . but God literally gave Barbara to me. Barb is everything I ever dreamed of and everything I ever prayed for, everything I ever wanted. It was something God did. I had proven over and over again that I couldn’t win a wife, but God had the power to give me a wife. God had the power to give me one.
It was 32 years ago when I met Barb on the balcony of the patio of her apartment. There was a party there. When I saw her . . . I cannot explain this . . . but I knew that somehow . . . I knew immediately that she was everything that I’d ever wanted. I also knew that God had given her to me. I cannot explain that, but it’s God’s power. We’ve been married 31 years, and it’s a gift of God.
What I want you to understand is that God’s presence and power are just as available to you as His presence and power are to me. Whatever you’re going through—whether it’s in the business world, whether you have a health problem, whether you have a relational problem . . . whatever it is—God wants you to trust His presence. God wants you to trust His power. This is true in every area of life.
What’s true in my dating life is really true in the ministry. This church and the whole ministry here is all a “God thing.” It’s all the power of God and the presence of God. It’s true in all of our lives. Whatever is good, it’s God. God wants us to begin to live a life where we trust His presence and power. There’s no telling what God might do in your life if you would begin to trust His presence and His power and live every day aware of His presence and power—trusting it, and living with the joy and the peace that that trust brings.
I know you can look up in the stars at night, and you can see the heavens. You can see the glory of them. The Bible says that God created the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of His hands. We think of this planet as pretty awesome—8,000 miles in diameter, 25,000 miles in circumference. We think of this planet as a big deal, but it’s just a speck in God’s creation. In fact, it’s just a speck in this solar system. A million earths would fit inside of our sun. Did you know that? We think of our sun as this awesome star, but it’s only one of 250 billion stars in this galaxy called the Milky Way.
Our sun is not even a large star. For instance, there is another star called “Antares.” It’s so large that 60,000 of our suns would fit inside of it. Antares is such a big star that our whole solar system out to the orbit of Mars would fit inside. That’s the kind of galaxy we live in. It’s just vast—100,000 light years across, 100,000 light years long. It would take light moving at 186,000 miles a second 100,000 years just to cross the length of our galaxy. Yet, our galaxy is only one of 100 billion galaxies . . . and it’s not even a big galaxy.
I was reading recently about a galaxy called 3C345. This galaxy was discovered in 1980, and they now believe it is 86 million light years long. Can you believe that? It takes light moving at 186,000 miles a second 86 million years just to cross that one galaxy. So vast is the universe! The Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
One of my favorite people is Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt was the 27th President of the United States and a professing Christian. He went to Harvard. He was a hero in the Spanish American War. He became the governor of New York state. He was Vice-President of the United States.
In the year 1901, he ascended to the presidency with the assassination of William McKinley. He was, I think, a very good president. In 1904, he was reelected (really, elected for the first time) with the largest margin of victory up to that point in presidential history. He was not a humble man, but he believed in humility. He really believed in humility, but he also really thought he was pretty great. So, humility was always a struggle for Theodore Roosevelt.